A unique way to design sounds. You can get some truly wicked and unique sounds from this sound machine

Rating: 4 out of 5
posted Monday-Nov-02-1998 at 03:27

writes:

This piece is lots of fun to use. I mostly use weird old analog ands whatever toys etc to make sounds (I like different sounds) This machine delivers

Rating: 4 out of 5
posted Friday-Oct-30-1998 at 03:29

Ken
a professional user
from NYC
writes:

Once you undersatand the many fine nuances of this machine you can really go off with new sounds. I really enjoy using this piece, the screen is fantastic for laying out sounds!

Rating: 5 out of 5
posted Wednesday-Aug-05-1998 at 23:37

Serge
a professional user
from Belgium
writes:

I love this machine. If you are into using classic Yamaha FM then this is definitly the best way! The screen is a much better interface than the dx7 and others. If you are into tweaky funked out trippy noises then this piece is for you.

Rating: 5 out of 5
posted Wednesday-Aug-05-1998 at 23:37

Aron Renkavinsky
a hobbyist user
from USA
writes:

The CX5M is amazingly useful for its time and definitely is capable of producing some good sounds. While well suited for electronic sounds, it can be programmed to produce some good instrument voicings too. I was impressed with some of the built in sounds. They were relatively high quality for a 4 operator FM synth. The MIDI capability of the CX5M also impressed me. It is possible to program byte wise MIDI data and send it on channels 1 - 16. With all the development software such as music composers, voice editors, and DX voice editors and a good set of hardware such as an extra slot for expanded memory, an upgradable 4-op FM synth module with MIDI in and out, tape storage port, available disk drive (I believe it came with version II), and modem this is a very capable machine. Though it is sometimes hard to use, and by todays standards weak on equipment, I still find it useful. There are some sounds that are relatively characteristic of this machine and are hard to duplicate. If nothing else, I can use it as a trigger or as a slave unit. The CX5M is the only MSX platform computer produced in America out of (I think it was) 7 licenses. They were all supposed to be systems geared for a particular use such as the Yamaha CX5M Music Computer. There were supposed to software titles, mostly games, that would be usable on all the MSX systems. The MSX systems caught on mostly as game systems and were developed up to version V. The CX5M has a BASIC interpreter built in - Microsoft MSX basic. The instruction set includes DEF USR which allows machine language programming as well as many graphics oriented commands. The processor is a Z80A clocked at 3.57954MHz much like the modern TI-81 through TI-86 calculators. The original version also has 32k of RAM like the TI-82 through TI-85. The CX5M also includes a joystick/paddle port which is compatible with the old ATARI controllers. There's definitely a lot here for the money and it's a good learning tool. I bought mine for $80 a few years ago so they're probably worth nothing in 1998. There are MSX emulators available. The best one I know of is fMSX. You can download the Macintosh version from www.emulation.net .